With this ring, I thee wed?

Sue Sylvester married herself on Glee, and one guy even wed a cheeseburger in a recent Jack & the Box commercial….but both events occurred on TV. This shit doesn’t really happen in reality, does it?  Well yes, actually, it does. A woman from Fargo, North Dakota DID tie the knot with herself in a self-commitment ceremony last March and she’s finally explained the why behind her crazy.

Nadine Schweigert sat down with Anderson Cooper to talk about her reasons for…err….her reasons for settling down for a life-time commitment with herself.

The 36-year-old’ yoga instructor’s marriage took place among friends and family who were encouraged to “blow kisses to the world” after she exchanged rings with her “inner groom”.

“I feel very empowered, very happy, very joyous … I want to share that with people, and also the people that were in attendance, it’s a form of accountability,” she told the Silver Fox.

Fox

She revealed that the ceremony was to show how far she’s come since going through a divorce so painful six years ago that her two children opted to live with her husband instead.

“Six years ago I would’ve handled a problem by going out and drinking,” she said. “I smoked, I was 50 pounds overweight … this is just celebrating how far I’ve come in my life.”

She added that she takes herself on dates to treat herself and “to invest in this relationship”

Schweigert got the idea from a friend, saying: “I was waiting for someone to come along and make me happy. At some point, a friend said, ‘Why do you need someone to marry you to be happy? Marry yourself.’”

I like the concept of female empowerment, and you don’t need a man to make you happy, but I don’t know if it’s entirely true.

While it’s a lovely sentiment, and while she should be happy alone, this seems to be a desperate attempt for Nadine to convince herself that she’s OK, that she doesn’t need anyone else.

But here’s the thing: while we should all be happy with ourselves, and being alone, isn’t part of what makes us human our need for companionship, for love?

Marrying yourself makes a statement, alright, but it isn’t really all that honest.

If she was being truthful with herself, if she were really soul-searching, Nadine might realize that she isn’t all that happy on her own and that, in fact, she’s afraid to be by herself so must pretend to be strong.

But who am I to judge? Do what you need to do to get you through the day.  Sometimes when we pretend that we’re happy, we actually fool ourselves into thinking that we are.